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Adonai forbid that I should raise my hand against Adonai 's anointed! But now, we'll take the spear by his head and the jug of water, and get out of here."

Please, now, may my lord the king hear what his servant is saying. If it is Adonai who has stirred you up against me, let him receive an offering. But if it's human beings, then a curse on them before Adonai ! — because, as things stand today, they have driven me out, so that I can no longer share in Adonai 's inheritance — they've said, ‘Go, serve other gods!'

Adonai will give every person a reward suited to his uprightness and faithfulness. Adonai put you in my power today, but I would not raise my hand against Adonai 's anointed.

But David said to himself, "One day Sha'ul will sweep me away. The best thing for me to do is to escape into the territory of the P'lishtim. Then Sha'ul will give up trying to find me here or there in Isra'el's territory, and at last I'll be free of him."

David would attack the land, leaving alive neither men nor women, but taking the sheep, cattle, donkeys, camels and clothing. Then he would return and go to Akhish.

But when he consulted Adonai , Adonai didn't answer him — not by dreams, not by urim and not by prophets.

But Sha'ul swore to her by Adonai , "As Adonai lives, you will not be punished for doing this."

But he refused and said, "I won't eat." Then his servants, together with the woman, urged him; and he heeded what they said. He got up off the ground and sat on the bed.

But the chiefs of the P'lishtim became angry and said to him, "Have the man return and go back to the place you set aside for him. Don't let him go into battle with us, because on the battlefield he might become our enemy. What better way could there be for him to get reconciled with his lord than by [cutting off] the heads of our men?

This is David! They used to dance and sing about him, ‘Sha'ul has killed his thousands, but David his tens of thousands'!"

David said to Akhish, "But what have I done? What have you found in your servant during the time I've been with you that disqualifies me from going and fighting against the enemies of my lord the king?"

and they had taken captive the women and everyone there, great and small. They hadn't killed anyone but had carried them off as they went on their way.

David was in serious trouble: the people were talking about stoning him to death, because all the people were in such deep grief, each man over his sons and daughters. But David strengthened himself in Adonai his God.

But some of the men who had gone with David were evil men, scoundrels; and they said, "They didn't go with us, so we're not giving them any of the property we've recovered. Each man can take his wife and children and leave."

Sha'ul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through with it. Otherwise these uncircumcised men will come, run me through and make sport of me." But his armor-bearer refused, he was too frightened. So Sha'ul took his sword and fell on it.

He said to me, ‘I'm in agony, and I'm going to die, but I'm still alive. So please, stand next to me; and kill me.'

Be strong, and be brave. Sha'ul your lord is dead, but the house of Y'hudah have anointed me king over them."

Ish-Boshet the son of Sha'ul was forty years old when he began to rule over Isra'el, and he ruled for two years. But the house of Y'hudah followed David.

Avner said to him, "Turn off to your right or your left, catch one of the young men and take his armor." But ‘Asah'el wouldn't turn aside and kept following him.

But he still refused to turn aside; so Avner stabbed him in the groin with the back end of the spear, so that the shaft protruded behind him. He fell down and died on the spot. Everyone who came to the place where ‘Asah'el lay dead stopped there.